In mid-February 1861, Los Angeles County Judge Dryden approved a petition presented by Gift and others to open enrollment for a volunteer militia company.
Gift chaired the first meeting of the pro-Confederate "Los Angeles Mounted Rifles" company, then about 80-85 men, on March 17, 1861.
[2][3] Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, Federal troops were sent into Los Angeles and Gift escaped to the east with the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, riding through the southern deserts, with hostile Apache and Union patrols searching for them, to Mesilla, the new capital of Confederate Arizona Territory.
He was then sent aboard the CSS Arkansas, at Memphis, Tennessee, and slightly wounded in action, July 15, 1862, during the ram's passage through the Federal fleet, above Vicksburg.
He was then appointed 1st lieutenant, Provisional Navy, from January 6, 1864, and ordered to report aboard the CSS Savannah.
Gift was then involved in a failed attempt to capture the USS Adela, at St. George's Sound, Florida, in May 1864.
Disappointed there, he moved to reside in Memphis, Tennessee, and had more success, getting various subscribers to organize the Arkansas Emigration Company.
In July 1869, he left for San Francisco, and then China, to arrange for Chinese laborers, in the interest of the Arkansas Emigration Company.